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Alcohol-related hallucinations or delusions resulted in 6,479 stays in hospital for patients last year ­compared to 6,963 stays for alcoholic liver disease and 4,747 stays for alcohol dependence.

In 1997/98 there were just 50 admissions per 100,000 people but by last year that had soared to 120.

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Alcohol-related hallucinations resulted in 6,479 stays in hospital for patients last year

The figures from the NHS Scotland Information Services Division (ISD Scotland) show that abuse of alcohol remains the most common cause of acute hospital admissions as last year there were 10,461 stays – more than one an hour.

The number of admissions has risen five-fold from 791 in 1996/97 to 4,511 in 2014/15

While psychoses have been rising steadily over that past two decades, harmful use had been on the wane from a peak of around 280 admissions per 100,000 in 2007/08 to fewer than 200 cases in 2012/13, but there has been a slight increase since then.

In 2014/15, the overall burden of alcohol-related hospital stays is made up of around a third completely new hospital patients, a third of patients from previous years being re-admitted and a third repeat stays within the year.

By contrast, in 1991/92 around half of hospital stays were completely new patients and the rest were repeat stays within the year or in-patients who had been hospitalised in previous years.

This indicates that the increase in hospital stays seen up to 2007 has been driven to a large extent by repeat visits in previous patients rather than new patients presenting to hospital, ISD Scotland said.

Meanwhile, huge rises in heroin and methadone-related illnesses and drug problems amongst the middle-aged have driven drug-related hospital stays to a record high.

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In 1997/98 there were just 50 admissions per 100,000 people but by last year that had soared to 120

The number of admissions has risen five-fold from 791 in 1996/97 to 4,511 in 2014/15. There were almost as many hospital stays linked to opioids – heroin, methadone and codeine – use as there were for alcohol dependence.

Overall, there were 133 hospital stays per 100,000 associated with drug misuse in 2014/15, up from 41 in 1996/97.

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There were 133 hospital stays per 100,000 associated with drug misuse in 2014/15

Drug-related hospitalisations have remained steady amongst under-25s, but there has been an 11-fold increase in admissions of those aged 40-44, from 20 per 100,000 to 236.

There was an even bigger 15-fold increase amongst 45-49-year-olds from 11 per 100,000 to 166, while admissions of those aged 50-54 have gone up from seven per 100,000 to 84.